Chapter 23: THE ROAD TO TEMERIA
A month on the road taught me what it really meant to travel with a Witcher.
Geralt walked when others would ride, conserving Roach's strength for when it mattered. He ate when food was available and ignored hunger when it wasn't. He slept light, one hand on his sword, waking at sounds I couldn't hear.
I learned to keep pace without complaining. To set up camp efficiently, to know when silence was welcome and when questions were tolerated. My body, already hardened by three years of travel, grew harder still. The soft edges I'd arrived with in this world had long since burned away.
"You're different than I expected." Geralt said it one evening, over a fire in a roadside clearing. "Bards are usually..."
"Useless? Whiny? Dead within a week?"
"Something like that."
I poked the fire with a stick, watching sparks drift upward. "I've been traveling for three years. Before I met you, I survived bandits, monsters, political assassins." I thought of Baron Vetter's sabotaged carriage, the way I'd fixed that wheel with my own hands in the dark. "You learn to adapt or you don't survive."
He made that sound—"Hmm"—but something in his posture had shifted. Less guarded. More curious.
"The song is spreading," he said.
"Good."
"People recognize me now. They don't reach for weapons as quickly."
I looked up from the fire. "That bothers you?"
"I don't know." His golden eyes reflected the flames. "I've spent decades being the monster humans fear. It's... strange to be something else."
"You were never a monster." The words came out more fiercely than I intended. "You were a convenient scapegoat. Someone they could blame for the ugly truths they didn't want to face."
Geralt didn't respond, but he didn't dismiss me either. We sat in silence for a while, watching the fire burn low.
My power was growing.
I could feel it—the reservoir of belief expanding with every performance, every traveler who hummed "Toss a Coin" on the road. The song had taken on a life of its own, spreading faster than I could track. Hundreds of people knew it now. Maybe thousands.
Stage 3 wasn't far. I could almost taste it—the threshold where my abilities would expand again, where new songs would become possible.
But I was careful around Geralt. I used my powers sparingly, maintaining the facade of "just a bard" even as my influence grew. The hedge witch's warning still echoed in my memory: Whatever you are, stay beneath their eyes or they will dissect you.
Geralt wasn't a mage, but his enhanced senses were equally dangerous. If he noticed the supernatural weight in my performances, he'd have questions I couldn't answer.
So I held back. Performed with skill but not power, let the song's natural catchiness do the work without supernatural amplification. It was frustrating—like fighting with one hand tied—but necessary.
Soon. When I'm stronger, when I understand more, maybe I can tell him.
Or maybe I'd carry this secret forever. Some truths were too strange to share.
Two weeks into our journey, I developed a blister on my heel that made every step agony.
I didn't complain. Complaining wasn't something I did anymore—three years of road travel had burned that impulse out of me. But I limped, couldn't help it, and Geralt noticed everything.
For two days, he said nothing. I hobbled along behind him, focusing on the next step, then the next, ignoring the fire in my foot.
On the third morning, he dropped something beside my bedroll before I woke fully.
Boots. Good leather, barely worn, sized close enough to fit.
"Where did these come from?"
"Bandit. Three days back." Geralt was already breaking camp, not looking at me. "He doesn't need them anymore."
I pulled on the boots. They fit perfectly—or close enough that my heel stopped screaming. The leather was supple, the soles still intact.
"Thank you."
"Hmm."
That was Geralt's way. Actions instead of words. Gifts given without acknowledgment expected. I filed it away with all the other small kindnesses I'd witnessed—the way he'd shared his water when mine ran out, the blanket he'd thrown over me during a cold night without comment.
He pretends to be a monster. But monsters don't bring you boots.
Temeria announced itself gradually—more traffic on the roads, larger towns, the distant gleam of castle towers on the horizon. We passed through villages where "Toss a Coin" had already arrived, where innkeepers looked at Geralt with respect instead of fear.
In a border town called Maribor, Geralt found his next contract.
"The Striga," he said, studying a notice board in the town square. "Princess Adda. Cursed at birth, transformed into a monster. King Foltest has offered a substantial reward for whoever breaks the curse."
I kept my face neutral, even as my heart pounded.
I knew this story. Knew it intimately—the incestuous affair between Foltest and his sister, the jealous lord who'd placed the curse, the terrible transformation that followed. In the timeline I remembered, Geralt had nearly died breaking this curse.
"A Striga," I said carefully. "Those are dangerous, aren't they?"
"One of the most deadly creatures on the Continent." Geralt pulled the notice from the board. "Fast, strong, resistant to most magic. And this one has been feeding for years."
"You're going to take the contract."
"Someone has to."
He walked toward the town's largest inn, presumably to gather more information. I followed, my mind racing.
The Striga contract was pivotal. It established Geralt's relationship with King Foltest, set up future plot threads, demonstrated that he could cure monsters rather than just kill them. I couldn't interfere with that.
But I also couldn't watch him walk into a death trap without doing something.
The castle visible on the hill—the abandoned palace where the Striga slept—seemed to watch us as we entered the inn. I touched the knife in my boot, knowing it would be useless against what waited in that darkness.
I need a better plan than 'stab it with a small blade.'
Tomorrow, I'd start gathering intelligence. The taverns of Temeria held secrets, and I was very good at making people talk.
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